Oz Circumnavigation
Cairns to Whitsunday Island group - Queensland
Just arrived at Blue Pearl Bay at Hayman Island which is significant as this was our first anchorage we made in July 2007 when we went solo for the first time after the handover. Technically the circumnavigation has been fulfilled as SKIE left from here one year ago to go south to Hobart.
We can say we have now visited every state capitol city in the country, excluding our countries inland capital Canberra where socialist bureaucrats sip chardonnay and dream up ways to tax mariners.
On board with me was Dave Reid and his partner Teresa who will stay on board for a week.
Dave has previously been on a couple of long voyages before without seeing the anchor wet. He's the boats barman and uses NZ time as his reference for the right time to whip the top off one - gotta luv 'im though.
Hancock Island & Hinchinbrook Channel
The three day trip to the Whitsundays had us leaving Cairns at 2200 hours on Monday 28th Sept, and claiming our first stop at Hancock Island at the south of Hinchinbrook Channel 18 hours later.
What a sight this is to behold and it reminded me of being in the Leeward Islands of French Polynesia. I must say that this is one of the three top places I've visited over the whole trip around our wonderful and diversified country. It has to be the closest you can get to soaring mountains so close to the water.
Lucinda
The southern entrance to the passage had us going past a town named Lucinda. This entrance, or exit for us, is full of shallow shifting bars and leads were in place for a back reference to get out.
However my charts revealed if we stood to the leads we would have only 1.2 m under us, but of course we had more as we were on the rising tide an hour before slack water.
Lucinda is a hub for sugar distribution and the conveyor belt wharf goes out 3 nm (or 5 plus kilometres) which we followed before the leads could be seen and we moved away from the wharf to find the deeper water.
Blue Pearl Bay, Whitsundays
Next stop was at Cape Bowling Green for a sleep and at first light we headed south to Blue Pearl Bay on the north side of Hayman Island at the top of the Whitsundays.
Getting in at 2200 hours we had a good sleep and prepared to go to the famous Whitehavn Beach where we were to have a reunion with 3 of my previous shipmates, Peter O'Brien and his wife Sal, Marcel Hendricksen and wife Inga, and David Brown and partner Trish who were keen to show off their new Selene 59 power boat which was very impressive indeed.
The boat is booked into the Hamilton Island marina for two weeks so I can get back to Melbourne and welcome home Marg who has been in Europe for 4 weeks visiting her niece in the UK and our daughter and two grandchildren in the Netherlands.
Apropos of nothing really, but we berthed next to Il Volpi a major mega yacht that was used in the latest James Bond movie so I'm told.
Just out of the harbour on a mooring is another giant named Texas. What these boats have in common is that both owners live in my home town Melbourne, both billionaires, and would you believe it, both conked out due to mechanical problems.
ll Volpi has the US clothing designer Donna Karan on board and as she wanted to go diving over at Blue Pearl today so they had to hitch a lift on a friend of mines little 65 footer.
SKIE is now very spick after finally getting rid of the red dust that's been on the whole northern E Coast of Australia and I expect to be back up here with Marg to do another stage down to the Gold Coast (560 nm) in about 2 weeks.
This will be my 3rd attempt to haul the boat for the first time ever to repaint anti foul and check running gear, seacocks, zincs etc.
I just dived two days ago on the boat and found the bottom almost perfect apart from some slime that could be rubbed off with a towel, and incredibly it was last scrubbed 6 months ago in Hobart just before we left.
Just goes to show about a rolling stone not gathering any moss (barnacles in our case)
By the time we get to Hobart in Jan the boat will have travelled the equivalent since new (2 years, and six months ago) almost around the world. i.e. Oz to the Red Sea via SE Asia, through the Med, across the Atlantic to Panama, then SE to French Polynesia.
Ad nauseam again I unabashedly claim, the boat continues to be faultless without any serious issues, so we are very blessed.